Ispat Nigam starts consumer portal

LUCKNOW: With an eye on the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, Union steel minister and Gonda MP Beni Prasad Verma on Monday announced a number of steel factories and processing units to come up in the state. At a dealers' meet organized by the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), he said that his projects would bring a lot of development and employment for the local people.

Beni said, "I promise to give Gonda district a steel processing unit, a power plant and an ITI soon." He empahsised the importance of India's rural market for the sector saying that even though the rural belt comprises two-thirds of the population, steel consumption is just 85 lakh tones which is only 13% of all India consumption.

"Our rural per capita consumption is just 10 kg every year as compared to 59 kg consumption in urban areas", he said. Beni inaugurated RINL's consumer portal for direct e-sales to boost the demand for steel, especially in rural areas.

Beni hinted at two steel processing units which would soon come up in Ambedkar Nagar and Ghaziabad. He also said that the ministry was exploring opportunities to start processing units in Hardoi, Jhansi, Barabanki and Lakhimpur area too, besides Gonda. The minster added that the Indian rural market would be bigger than the markets in some of the developed countries in the next few years.

RINL, the PSU working under the ministry has set a target to achieve a 1,000 dealer mark in rural India to ensure that steel reaches in every corner of the country. RINL has appointed 101 dealers in UP, the highest in the country. Beni also made announcement about coal based power plants in Jagdishpur and Gonda.

to meet power requirement of the state. He said that RINL is considering the idea of establishing a manufacturing unit of railway coach components for Indian railways in Rai Bareli area. SAIL and RINL, both are planning to set up rural stockyards across the country. "We would soon set up a stockyard in Varanasi," said the minister.